Frank D. FerrariResearch Zoologist

• Phone: 301-238-1182
• Fax: 301.238.3361
• E-mail: ferrarif@si.edu


• Mailing Address:
  Smithsonian Institution
  Museum Support Center
  4210 Silver Hill Rd.
  Suitland, MD 20746
  
• Courier Delivery Address:
  Smithsonian Institution
  Museum Support Center
  4210 Silver Hill Rd.
  Suitland, MD 20746
  

Responsibilities: Curator of Copepoda

Education:
Hobart College, 1967, B.S. Biology
Boston University, 1969, M.S. Marine Biology
Texas A&M University, 1974, Ph.D. Oceanography

Research Interests:
Development of Copepods and Related Crustaceans, Patterning of Crustacean Limbs, Taxonomy of Deep-Sea Copepods.

More kinds of arthropods exist today than any other comparable group of animals. An important reason for their success is the marvelous variety of arthropod limbs. Although studies of arthropod development have been carried out for more than 300 years, a basic question about their limbs has gone unasked until recently: how are the limbs patterned during development? Over the last five years, analyses of the comparative morphology of crustacean limb development have begun to reveal information about that question. The protopod of a crustacean limb is patterned distally from the point where the limb joins the body, so that the youngest element of the protopod is always closest to the body. Ramal patterning is more complex; new elements can be added either proximally and distally from a source segment, so that the youngest elements are closest to this patterning center. As a result, determination of homologous segments of a ramus results from a complex analysis and is not a simply a counting exercise; the contemporary application of numerical symbols in a simple, proximodistal progression is a misleading exercise.

Sea water directly above the deep ocean floor is an extremely undersampled habitat. Analyses of this habitat have revealed a wonderful faunal diversity, particularly of calanoid copepods. Almost all of these copepods are new to science. And they are unlike copepods from any other marine habitat. Many of the characters of their morphology have not been observed before, and the states of these characters are evolutionarily derived so that many new genera and families have been established for the new species. The accumulation of myriad kinds of organic matter from primary and secondary production in the water column may account for this faunal diversity, and adaptations to detritivory seems to have played a role in how the fauna of this eternally dark world has been structured.

Professional Activities:
Editorial board, ORGANISMS, DIVERSITY and EVOLUTION [Gesellschaft fuer Biologische Systematik e.V.]
Editorial board, INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY [Moscow State University]

Selected Publications:
F. D. Ferrari & H.-U. Dahms. 2007. Post-embryonic Development of the Copepoda – Crustaceana Monographs #8, 236pp.

E. L. Markhaseva & F. D. Ferrari . 2006. New benthopelagic bradfordian calanoids (Crustacea: Copepoda) from the Pacific Ocean with comments on generic relationships . - Invertebrate Zoology, 2: 111-168.

F. D. Ferrari & H. Ueda. 2005. Development of the fifth leg of copepods belonging to the calanoid superfamily Centropagoidea (Crustacea). - Journal of Crustacean Biology, 25: 333-352.

F. D. Ferrari & Mark J. Grygier.2003. Comparative morphology among trunk limbs of Caenestheriellagifuensis and of Leptestheriakawachiensis (Crustacea: Branchiopoda: Spinicaudata). - Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 139: 547-564.

F. D. Ferrari & V. N. Ivanenko. 2001. Interpreting segment homologies of the maxilliped of cyclopoid copepods by comparing stage-specific changes during development. - Organisms, Diversity and Evolution 1: 113-131.

F. D. Ferrari. 1998. Setal developmental patterns of the thoracopods of cyclopid copepods (Cyclopoida) and their use in phylogenetic inference. - Journal of Crustacean Biology 18: 471-489.

J. W. Ambler, F. D. Ferrari & J. Fornshell. 1991. Population structure and swarm formation of a cyclopoid copepod, Dioithonaoculata, near mangrove cays. - Journal of Plankton Research 13: 1257-1272.

F. D. Ferrari. 1988. Developmental patterns in numbers of ramal segments of copepod post-maxillipedal legs. - Crustaceana 54: 256-293.

F. D. Ferrari & M. Dojiri. 1987. The calanoid copepod Euchaetaantarctica from Southern Ocean Atlantic Sector midwater trawls, with observations on spermatophore dimorphism. - Journal of Crustacean Biology 7: 458-480.

G. A. Boxshall, F. D. Ferrari & H. Tiemann. 1984. The ancestral copepod: Towards a consensus opinion at the First International Conference on Copepoda. - Crustaceana Supplement 7: 68-84.

Full Publication List